


Ecstasy

by watanuki_sama



Category: Common Law
Genre: Feelings, Gen, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Some Swearing, but nothing bad happens, intentional OOCness, sort of pre-slashy i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-05
Updated: 2013-10-05
Packaged: 2017-12-28 11:06:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/991299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/watanuki_sama/pseuds/watanuki_sama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A suspect slips Wes something, and Travis has to deal with a high, out-of-his-mind partner. The rest of the squad is amused. Oneshot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ecstasy

**Author's Note:**

> Also post on FF.net under the penname 'EFAW' on 10.04.13.
> 
> Written for a prompt on **common_meme** on lj.

_“It is through the cracks in our brains that ecstasy creeps in.”_  
 _\--Logan Pearsall Smith_

\---

Travis knows everyone is waiting when they get back. Policemen are like women at the beauty salon; gossip spreads like wildfire, and everyone has heard everything. He has no doubt the whole department already knows. By tomorrow, the entire precinct will know.

If he didn’t need to come back and file the stupid incident report, he would have ditched work as soon as they left the hospital. As it is, he needs to brave RHD and all of his coworkers and it’s either going to totally suck or be totally hilarious. Possibly both.

He sighs and takes a fortifying breath, tugging gently on Wes’s arm. “Come on, let’s just get this over with.”

Wes follows docilely. It’s a little scary.

The moment they step through the doors, a flurry of whispers erupts. Because there’s nothing cops like more than a story about their own, and this one is one for the record books.

Wes is going to _kill_ him in the morning.

“Travis!” Captain Sutton appears, cup of coffee in one hand. “How’s our boy doing?”

“He’s—” Travis starts, but is interrupted by an enthusiastic cry of, “Captain!”

Wes practically falls down the stairs, wrapping his arms around the captain’s neck and latching on like a leech.

Everyone stops pretending to be busy and outright stares.

“He’s fine,” Travis says, running his hand over his face to try and hide a smile. Guess they’re going with ‘hilarious’, then. This really shouldn’t be so amusing. “The doctor said there’s nothing we can do except let the drugs run through his system. He should be back to normal in a few hours.”

“That’s…good,” Sutton says, looking as though he doesn’t quite know where to put his hands. He finally settles on carefully patting Wes’s back with his free hand. “Glad to hear you’re alright, Mitchell.”

“Captain,” Wes croons, “I love you.”

The hand freezes. The room freezes. Even the phones go silent, for a brief moment, lending a surreal atmosphere to the room.

“Travis…?” Sutton questions, and Travis is pretty sure he’s not imagining the undertone of mild panick in the captain’s voice. Honestly, Travis doesn’t know what’s funnier; the horror on the captain’s face, or the gob-smacked looks on everyone else’s.

“It’s nothing, don’t worry about it,” Travis waves a hand dismissively, descending the steps to hopefully distract Wes long enough for the captain to make his escape. “He’s also currently in love with the paramedic, the ER nurse, three patients in the waiting room, the doctor, everyone in the lobby downstairs, and the metal detector.”

“The metal detector,” the captain repeats flatly.

“The metal detector,” Travis confirms, biting back a smile. He reaches out slowly, like he’s trying not to spook a skittish animal. “Hey, Wes, let the captain get back to work.” Gently, he tugs at Wes’s arm. “Let’s go sit down, and you can play with your shiny new stapler.” Luckily, Wes is currently as easily as distractible as a small child, so this works.

As soon as he’s free, Sutton glares at the room. “What are you all staring at?” He waves his coffee cup with authority. “Back to work, all of you!”

Travis leads them to the desk, and a part of him wishes they didn’t sit in the middle of the room in plain view of _everyone_ , and a part of him is making a mental note to get copies of the videos Whitaker and Nolan are trying to sneak. “There you go, buddy,” he encourages, nudging Wes towards his chair. “No more hugging anyone, okay? It freaks people out.”

Wes collapses into his chair with a giggle and none of his customary grace, and if Travis hadn’t seen it himself he’d never believe it. As it is, he’s still not quite sure this isn’t all some sort of weird dream brought on by hallucinogens. Maybe _he’s_ the one who was drugged, and this is all some elaborate, bizarre fantasy.

“Travis!” Wes exclaims, pulling Travis out of his thoughts. “Travis it spins!” because of course Wes has discovered the wonders of his office chair.

No, definitely not a dream, Travis decides, _nothing_ in his brain could come up with something this strange.

“Hey, now, stop that,” he demands, climbing to his feet with an exasperated groan. He grabs the back of Wes’s chair and pulls it to a stop. “What are you, five? You’ll make yourself sick.” He reaches out and takes a moment to thank Wes’s anal-retentive attention to details because he puts his hand on the promised stapler instantly. “Here, play with this.”

Wes turns the stapler over in his hands like he’s never seen it before, eyes bright with delight (or mood-enhancers, it’s a toss-up). Travis resists the urge to show him how to use it, because he knows Wes knows damn well how to use a stapler, it’s just his perception that tells him Wes is a small helpless child, everything will go back to normal by the end of the day.

When Wes clacks the stapler, he throws his head back and laughs in glee. It’s a beautiful sound, light and airy and full of innocent wonder.

Travis’s heart aches, because in seven years he’s _never_ heard Wes laugh like that.

“Right, yes, you play with that,” Travis says, shooting a glare at Detective Collins, who, unlike everyone else, is making no effort to hide her staring. She flushes when she notices Travis’s gaze and looks down. With a sigh he sits down at his desk, going over his files while Wes happily attacks random pieces of paper with the stapler and everyone surreptitiously watches from the corner of their eyes.

The stapler distracts Wes for a good twenty minutes. It only last for twenty minutes because that’s how long it takes for Wes to run out of staples. In the thirty seconds it takes Travis to refill the stapler, Wes has gotten up to explore the room. By the time Travis catches up with him, Wes has already proclaimed his love for four more coworkers, spun in three other office chairs, and stolen nine pens.

“Jesus, Wes, seriously?” Travis grumbles, holding up another absconded pen so the owner can claim it. “You’re obsessive about your pens, but you sure are liberal with others’.”

“But Travis, Travis, _look_.” Wes picks up a green-and-black striped pen for Travis to see. “It _clicks_!” He demonstrates several times.

Travis snatches the pen from Wes’s grasp and holds it up. “That’s great, and I will get you a whole box of clicky pens if it’ll keep you distracted, but you can’t go around taking other people’s stuff. It’s against the law, the rules, _and_ the Commandments. Remember those? Remember how much you like to follow the rules?”

Wes pouts as Officer Anderval comes up to retrieve the pen, watching the green-and-black striped marvel disappear.

It’s a five-second pout, though, because he’s grinning when Travis sits back down. Travis narrows his eyes. “What?”

Wes just rocks smugly back and forth in his chair, which is somehow a lot less irritating when he’s got a smile the size of the moon on his face. “You…are…” He searches for an appropriate word in his happy, drug-addled mind. “You’re _playing_ with me.”

“I’m _babysitting_ you,” Travis grumbles. He doesn’t remember it being this hard when he was watching his foster brothers and sisters, and he feels sorry for everything he ever put any of his foster parents or babysitters through.

“No, you’re _playing_ ,” Wes insists, scooching his chair across the floor so he’s by Travis. “And I know why,” he sings, gripping the arms of his chair and happily spinning. Travis stops that with a foot.

“Why?” Travis asks, willing to humor his partner. For the moment.

Wes’s grin just seems to get bigger, and he leans in close. In a stage whisper that carries farther than it should, he says, “You _like_ me.”

Travis’s first instinct is to deny. Deny everything, loudly and vehemently, and possibly start a fight. Travis tamps down on his first instinct, because that won’t help anything. Mostly because he knows that whatever he says right now, in this moment, will get back to Wes. Either Wes will remember tomorrow, or one of the many officers who aren’t even pretending not to eavesdrop will get it back to him.

Wes is being so open and carefree and _vulnerable_ , and Travis knows how much Wes hates being or feeling or appearing vulnerable in front of his coworkers. Hell, he hates being/feeling/appearing vulnerable in front of Travis, and Travis is the one who knows him best.

If he says the wrong thing right now, if he shoots Wes down without a thought when Wes is being so defenseless, it could irreparably hurt their friendship, and Travis has worked too hard to keep what they have to ruin it.

They can fight tomorrow. Today, Travis has to make sure he doesn’t say the wrong thing.

He’s pretty sure he can handle that. Maybe.

“I guess I like you well enough,” he mutters, gently kicking Wes’s chair away. He’s afraid he sounds a lot less put out than he means. In fact, to his own ears he sounds downright _affectionate_ and he really hopes that doesn’t come across to his coworkers. As much as he doesn’t want to shoot his partner down, he doesn’t want to add another thing for everyone to gossip about. They’re the subject of enough break room discussions as it is, especially since they started therapy, they don’t need to add kindling to the fire.

Wes spins away, letting out another one of those painfully innocent laughs, and seriously, Travis aches at the sound. To distract himself, he starts to get up and retrieve his wayward partner. Someone gets there first.

Kate grabs the chair, pulling it to a stop. Wes drops his head on the back of the chair, sending a loopy grin her direction. “Hi Kate. I love you.”

And Kate, instead of getting annoyed (like she totally would if it were Travis), just smiles back. “Well, hello detective,” she says, brushing of the ‘I love you’ thing with aplomb. She looks tenderer than Travis has ever seen her. Her interactions with them are usually pretty frosty unless they’re discussing a case. (Or maybe it’s just Travis.) Travis’s mind stutters, and then stutters again when she looks up and gives him an approving nod, like the whole _I like you well enough_ thing merited esteem.

 _Oh, Wes, see?_ Travis wants to say, _they don’t hate you as much as you think. Everyone likes you when you’re not being an arrogant asshole._

He doesn’t say it. If he ever _does_ decide to say it, it’s not a conversation he’ll subject either of them to in front of the entire squad.

“Kate,” he says instead, nodding his head in acknowledgement. “What’s up?”

“The captain wanted me to let you know they caught Beth Turner,” she announces, pushing Wes’s chair back to his desk. Wes, upon finding the refilled stapler, giggles and starts attacking his papers again. Travis cannot _wait_ to see the epic bitchface tomorrow when Wes comes in and realizes what he did to his paperwork. “They should be here in ten.”

 _Perfect_. Travis was going to go home as soon as he finished this report, but if he can get the bitch who drugged his partner in a cell, the better it will be. And then he can get Wes home to sleep off the drugs. That’s a wonderful plan.

Kate leans her hips on his desk. “Also, Captain wants me to sit on with you, since Wes is…currently compromised.” They both look at Wes, who has found a box of multi-colored highlighters and is decorating his paperwork. Yes. Travis is a dead man tomorrow.

The video footage he plans to blackmail out of his coworkers will _so_ be worth it.

“Sounds good,” he declares. Kate gives him a small _I don’t hate you right now as much as I normally do_ smile and pats him on the shoulder before walking back to her own desk.

By the time the officers arrive with their suspect, Travis is convinced Wes has some sort of hidden kleptomaniac hoarding habit, because there’s no way anyone should steal this many pens. Seriously, it’s a problem and Travis absolutely intends to bring it up in therapy next week.

“You have a problem, you know that?” Travis grumbles, handing Officer Anderval his green-and-black striped pen again. Wes watches it go with sad eyes and a dejected whine of, “But Travis, _it clicks_.” That’s not a valid argument, since every pen on Wes’s desk also clicks. Travis is pretty sure that Wes is just a closet pen thief.

Travis’s attention is drawn to the doors as a rush of upset murmurings passes through the room. Two officers lead Beth Turner inside, and the vibe in the air gets decidedly hostile. Their coworkers may not love Wes to pieces, especially on a bad day, but cops band together, and no one gets to drug one of their own and get away with it.

In fact, the only one who _isn’t_ glaring at Beth Turner is Wes, who sits up in his chair and beams at the woman. “Oh, it’s Mrs. Turner. Hi, Mrs. Turner!” And then he actually _waves_.

Travis is furious at the smug smirk on the woman’s face as she’s led into the interrogation room. He clenches his fists and thinks, yet again, that he should have just taken Wes home and be done with it. Let Beth Turner stew in holding until tomorrow.

Wes falls back in his chair, idly spinning a circle. “She had really good lemonade,” he confides in Travis, like this is a secret.

“Lemonade?” Kate questions, striding up to the desk with Amy.

Wes grins at her. “ _Really good_ lemonade. It had, like…stuff in it.” He makes wiggly fingers with his hands like he’s searching for the right word. “Fruit…and stuff. Made it taste good.”

“The ecstasy added some great flavor too,” Travis says with a calm he doesn’t feel. Wes doesn’t notice; Kate and Amy both shoot him a look. He waves them off.

“I’ll be ready when you are,” Kate says, excusing herself and heading to the interrogation room. Travis runs his hand over his face and forces everything down. He can get angry later. Right now he has to interrogate the woman who drugged his partner. No big deal.

He drops his hand with a tired sigh. “Can you watch him?” he asks Amy, waving a hand at Wes. “Hopefully this won’t take long.”

“I’m not a _child_ , Travis,” Wes whines, and then accidentally knocks over his pen cup when he flails his arms. 

“Of course you aren’t,” Travis says, hands gathering his files and mind not really on the conversation at hand. “Amy?” He glances at the brunette questioningly.

Her expression doesn’t change, but Travis could swear her face gets a little soft around the edges. “Sure, I’ll watch him,” she says, tugging on Wes’s arm with less force than Travis expects. “Come on, Mitchell, let’s go see what’s in the break room.”

“Amy! I love you!” Wes clings an arm around her shoulder, leaning close to whisper in her ear. It’s a whisper that carries, because Travis is pretty sure Wes doesn’t have any vocal modulation right now. “I like your hair. It’s shiny and bouncy.”

Travis snorts, and then tries not to grin too much when Amy shoots him a glower. After a second she rolls her eyes and continues toward the break room, letting Wes hang off her like a monkey.

“Be careful,” Travis calls after them. “He steals pens!”

Amy tosses a wave over her shoulder and disappears with Wes into the break room.

One of these days, he’s going to stop being surprised at how highly his coworkers regard his partner.

He takes another breath. Looks down at the file in his hands. _Okay. I can do this. Let’s do this._

Travis can’t do this.

Beth Turner looks like she stepped out of The Stepford Wives. She’s a perfect Barbie-doll housewife with a white smile, coiffed hair, and sunny flower-print dress. She’s on the PTA, she donates to animal shelters, and she’s second-in-command in the Neighborhood Watch.

She’s also the coldest bitch Travis has ever met.

“Look,” Travis says after half an hour of getting nowhere. “Why don’t you just talk to us? We can make this easier for you. Tell us why you murdered your neighbor.”

Beth Turner leans back in her seat, handcuffed hands placed primly on her lap. “You have no proof I killed Mr. Clark. Why would I ever want to hurt him?”

 _That’s what we’re trying to figure out_ , Travis doesn’t say. He doesn’t want to tip their hand. They’ve really got nothing but a few fabric fibres and a suspicion, and Travis can’t let her know that.

He tries a different tack. “Alright, look. We know you were making and selling ecstasy to the high school. We know you got into an argument with Simon Clark the other day. We know you own a scarf that matches the fabric fibres of the weapon that strangled Clark, a scarf that you just ‘happened’ to give to your sister last week. It’s just a matter of time until we _really_ find the murder weapon.”

He leans forward a little, trying to project trustworthiness. It’s a lot harder to do when Wes isn’t at his side radiating hostility and mistrust. Kate’s a great partner, but Travis and Wes just _work_.

“We’ve already got you on drug possession, dealing, and assaulting a police officer—”

“I never touched that officer,” she says indignantly.

“ _Drugging him without his consent or knowledge counts_ ,” Travis snaps, harsher than he means to. Kate gives him a sharp look. Something glitters in Beth Turner’s eyes, and he knows he’s getting nothing out of her. He pushes on anyway. “You’re already going to jail. As soon as we find the murder weapon, you’re just staying there longer. If you confess now, maybe you’ll get parole before you die.”

Personally, Travis wants to take Beth Turner on a drive that she doesn’t come back from and then dance on her grave, because _no one_ gets to hurt his partner while he’s around, but there’s a method to the way things work, and he’s not actually allowed to shoot someone for slipping Wes a roofie, much as he’d like to.

Beth Turner doesn’t say a word. Just leans back in her chair and smiles smugly.

He was right. They’re not getting anything. Disgusted, Travis collects his file, waving at the officer. “Get her out of here.” He stomps out, Kate on his heels, and resists the urge to punch something. It’s not _his_ fault the woman is a sociopath, and Wes will be fine in a few hours, so there’s no need to feel so angry or guilty.

Yeah, tell that to his limbic system.

“Hey, it’s not your fault,” Kate encourages, putting her hand on his shoulder. He shoots her an incredulous look.

“Really? How is this not my fault? I’m the one who sent him over there to interview the harmless housewife.”

“You’re also the one who exposed a drug dealer and found a suspect for your murder when you didn’t have one before.” She squeezes his shoulder. “Wes will be fine, and you’ve got your guy in custody. Officers are scouring her house and car, so it’s only a matter of time before they find the scarf. Travis, you did good, and, as embarrassed as Wes will be tomorrow, you know he’ll be more pleased about getting the murderer.”

Travis sighs, thunks his forehead against the wall. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.” He closes his eyes and takes a few deep breaths, counting to ten. They got their guy, and Wes will be fine. He just needs to let go and deal with it later. Or never. Never works too.

When enough of the anger has drained away, Travis turns and smiles wryly at the blonde. “You know what just happened here?” He pushes off the wall, letting her hand fall away. “We just had a moment.”

Kate’s face goes from supportive to disdainful. “Um, no, I don’t think we did.”

“No, we _did_.” Travis wiggles in glee. “We did, it was a bonding moment and it was _beautiful_.”

She rolls her eyes and turns towards the squad room. “You’re out of your mind, Marks! There was no moment!”

Travis laughs and follows her down the hall.

Wes is not in the break room. Wes is not in the squad room. Then he sees Amy, sitting calmly at her desk, and Travis, still a little wound up from that interrogation, is about to round on her when she raises one eyebrow threateningly and points to the captain’s office. Travis follows her finger and sees Wes’s head through the window; he offers her a sheepish smile in apology.

Amy rolls her eyes. “Just take him home already. It’s getting harder to distract him here.”

“Right.” Travis takes a step, pauses, turns around. “Thanks. Both of you.” He looks down at his shoes instead of at the two women. “I appreciate the help.”

“It’s not like we did it for _you_ ,” Kate says, but there’s a layer of…something under the snark that Travis can’t quite place.

“I mean, it’s a pretty well-known fact that we like Wes more than we like you,” Amy adds.

“Exactly.” Kate snaps her fingers like it was a revelation. “We did it for Wes, not for you.”

Travis hides a grin and nods. “Right. Of course. My mistake.” Then he bites back an impish grin and says to Kate, “Thanks for the moment back in the hall.”

He flees laughing as Kate demands, “There was no moment, dammit!”

In the doorway of the captain’s office, Travis pauses, taking in the sight. For the first time since this whole fiasco started, Wes is sitting still. He’s not fidgeting or twitching or trying to escape or stealing pens. He’s just sitting, staring at the captain’s water fountain with a look of rapture on his face.

Travis knocks on the doorframe, drawing the captain’s attention but not Wes’s. Sutton looks up, trying not to smile, and Travis takes that as permission to enter.

“How’d it go?” Captain asks, folding his hands in front of him.

Travis sighs and shrugs. “About as well as could be hoped, I guess. She’s not talking. I figure let her spend the night in jail, see if she’s more willing to talk tomorrow. By then, maybe we’ll have found the murder weapon too.”

Sutton nods. “Sounds like a plan. Now take your partner and get out of here. Bring him back in one piece tomorrow.”

“Will do.” He makes his way over to Wes, crouching beside the chair. “Hey, Wes, you ready to go?”

Wes hums a little and sways in his seat, eyes fixed on the water fountain. Travis chuckles. “You like Captain’s water fountain, huh?”

“It’s so…” Wes waves a hand. Travis waits for Wes to find a word, but nothing comes. _Oh_ , he realizes, _that was it. Okay._ He smiles fondly and agrees, “Yeah, it is.” He stands, putting a hand on Wes’s shoulder. “Come on, let’s go home.”

At that, Wes turns and look at Travis with an expression Travis can’t decode. Travis almost expects Wes to protest, but Wes just hums under his breath and clambers to his feet.

A dozen pens fall out of his lap to the floor.

Travis drops his head in his hands as Sutton laughs.

“I’m definitely bringing this up in therapy next week,” Travis vows, gathering the pens up and dragging Wes out of the captain’s office. “This isn’t normal. You’re a closet kleptomaniac or you’re way too obsessed with pens. Either way, it’s not healthy.” He dumps the handful of pens on Wes’s desk and makes a motion for people to come get theirs. Then he pushes Wes into Travis’s chair with a stern, “Stay,” and starts grabbing his gun and badge. He can’t wait to get home.

Wes doesn’t stay. He does, in fact, leap over Travis’s desk to grab the stupid green-and-black striped pen just as Officer Anderval comes up to collect it.

“Dammit Wes!” He grabs the pen, tugging at it. Wes refuses to let go. “Wes, give it _back_.” He’s about ready to smack Wes’s hand to get him to let go when Officer Anderval shakes his head.

“It’s okay, Detective Marks, he can hang onto it.”

Travis pauses, and Wes almost tugs it out of his grasp. “You sure, Officer?”

Anderval shrugs, smiling a little sheepishly. “I have other pens, it’s alright. Plus, I’m sure he’ll give it back when he’s…tomorrow.”

 _When he’s himself,_ Travis reads between the lines, and a part of Travis is glad Anderval didn’t say that. Because Wes is drugged out of his mind, but he’s still _himself_ (though where the pen stealing thing came from, Travis has no idea). This is just Wes being himself without all the layers and defenses up.

“Well, if you’re sure,” Travis says, releasing the pen to Wes’s custody. Wes cuddles it to his chest and coos at it like a baby bird and Travis gives him a _WTF?_ look that goes right over Wes’s head.

“Wes, thank Officer Anderval for letting you borrow his pen,” Travis orders, also grabbing Wes’s gun front his drawer and tucking it on his belt. Wes would kill him if he left Wes’s gun at work all night. Considering how many other things Wes will kill him for today, there’s no need to add one more to the list.

Wes lurches out of the chair and gives Anderval a sloppy hug. “I love you,” he declares, and it’s a credit to the adaptability of cops that Anderval barely bats an eye after so many of Wes’s ‘I love you’s today. “I love you and your pen.”

“And Officer Anderval’s pen loves you. Come on, Wes, time to go home.” Travis peels Wes off Anderval, tucking the borrowed pen in Wes’s jacket pocket, and gathers the rest of his stuff. He keeps a firm grip on Wes’s arm so his partner doesn’t wander off and guides him to the doors. Then he pauses on the threshold.

“Everyone,” he calls, which gets the attention of two-thirds of the room. He directs his fiercest Travis Marks glare, which is not nearly as effective as a Wesley Mitchell glare but still pretty powerful. “We are going home,” he announces, “and I want copies of every video anyone has made today. And if _any one of them,_ ” he points at Nolan at Whitaker, who he _knows_ have been recording Wes since the moment they walked in, “end up on Youtube, I will find you. And you will regret it. Goodnight.”

He leaves with a jaunty wave, like he _hasn’t_ just threatened his entire department. Captain Sutton will probably have a talk with him tomorrow. In this instance, Travis is okay with that.

Wes wrangling is both harder and easier when Wes is high off his mind. He follows along easily enough when Travis nudges him in the right direction, but at the same time, he gets completely distracted by anything and everything. The three minute walk to the parking garage takes almost twenty, and by the end Travis is seriously debating the merits of just cold-cocking his partner and dumping his unconscious body in the backseat.

He refrains. Barely.

“You’re a pain in the ass, you know that?” he grumbles as he pours Wes into the passenger seat, and he’s awfully glad the parking garage is empty because he’s afraid he sounds a lot more affectionate than he intended.

“You’re lucky I didn’t have a date tonight,” Travis adds, leaning over to buckle the seatbelt since Wes is currently pushing all the buttons on the stereo system even though the car isn’t turned on. “I totally would have dumped you at your home and left you there if I did.”

“Nooo,” Wes drawls, rolling his head and looking up at Travis through his lashes.

“Yes, I seriously would have, don’t you doubt it.” No, he wouldn’t have, but he has to sell the part, even when no one’s watching.

“No, no, no.” Wes rolls his head back and forth, and Travis just snorts and shuts the door.

And he thinks that’s it, thinks Wes is just disagreeing like he does, except Travis is barely in the car before Wes latches onto his arm.

“ _No_ ,” Wes intones, face unhappy even through the sheen of mood-enhancers. “Can’t go home.”

Travis tenses, looking over at Wes. “Why not? Did something happen at the hotel?” Travis would have heard if something happened to Wes’s place, right? Wes would have been bitching about it all day before he got drugged.

Wes drops Travis’s arm and slumps against the door with a dejected sound. “Hotel isn’t _home_ , Tra _vis_ ,” he grumbles in a decidedly _You’re so stupid why don’t you ever think about these things_ tone. Travis tries to decide if this is Wes just being Wes, or if this is Wes coming down off the drugs. One will be much easier to handle than the other.

“That’s…” Travis taps his thumbs on the steering wheel and tries to figure out what to say. “That’s true. I didn’t…realize you’d realized that.”

Wes shoots him a dirty glare. “ ‘m not _stupid_ , Travis.” He waves a hand, gets distracted, and studies his fingers like he’s never seen them before.

“Wes. _Wes_.” Travis snaps his fingers in front of Wes’s face, drawing glassy blue eyes to him. “Focus here. Why can’t you go home?”

“I don’t _have_ a home.” Wes drops his head against the window, staring blankly at the parking garage. “Hotels are for…trans…trani…homeless. ‘s what I am. Homeless.” He sighs, fogging the glass. “Alex took my home.”

There are deeper levels in that last sentence than the surface meaning, and Travis really is not emotionally prepared to get into them. He’s pretty sure he shouldn’t touch those issues with a ten-foot pole, especially not right now. This is going beyond Wes being defenseless and embarrassingly un-self-conscious. This is Wes being open and sharing and _laying his fucking heart out_ , something he would never, ever, _ever_ do if he was in his right mind, and Travis…really does not know what to do with that.

And if Wes ever, someday, decides he _does_ want to share his personal feelings with Travis, he should do it when he’s not being emotionally and mentally compromised by outside influences. Not that a sober Wes will ever decide to be so open with his feelings. Which is kind of the _point_.

All of a sudden, Travis wishes Dr. Ryan were here. She would know how to handle a partner who’s gone maudlin and communicative.

At least this is happening in the car in the empty parking garage. Wes is already going to kill him for half the stuff that happened today; no need to add an excess of public feelings to the mix.

Since Travis doesn’t know how to deal with this sort of thing, he takes a breath and does what he does best.

He pushes it aside and ignores it.

“Okay.” With a decisive nod, Travis starts the car. “We won’t go to your hotel. That’s alright. I’ve got a perfectly good couch at my place. You can spend the night and then you can make pancakes in the morning.” He shoots Wes a half-hearted grin.

Wes lights up like a Christmas tree. “Travis, I love you.”

That makes Travis laugh. He pulls out of the parking spot, shaking his head a little. “Glad I made the list. I was a bit hurt you didn’t love me along with everyone else, you know.” Well, no, more like he was highly amused and silently laughing his ass off whenever Wes said that to someone, because everyone looked freaked and it was _hilarious_.

“No, no.” Wes leans forward fast enough the seatbelt locks; Wes doesn’t really notice. “I love you. You…you can use my hand sanitizer whenever you want.”

Travis nearly drives into a support column, because in Wes-speak that’s practically a marriage proposal. Not even Anderval with the lovely green-and-black striped pen got that level of affection.

“That’s, uh…” Travis swallows, shifting in his seat. “Thank you.” Then, because Wes is looking at him all wide-eyed and expectant, Travis figures he has to reciprocate somehow. “I kind of lo—” No, not even for his drug-addled partner can he say those words. “You can borrow my stapler whenever you want.”

Which is about as cryptic as the hand sanitizer comment, but it makes Wes giggle, which is wonderful because Travis was _really_ hating the misery when his partner was talking about the hotel.

“You always lose your stapler,” Wes says brightly, fiddling with the buttons on the dash. But he doesn’t sound like he’s annoyed, he sounds like it’s a slightly amusing facet of Travis’s personality, and Travis admits that there’s a vaguely warm feeling hearing Wes talk about him like that. Only because it’s so weird to hear Wes compliment him without being snarky or sarcastic about it. Or having it forced out in therapy. It’s kind of nice, is all.

The car fills with blue and red as Wes turns on the lights. Travis glances over in time to see Wes throw his head back, laughing that heartbreakingly innocent laugh, sheer enchantment creasing his eyes and bringing out the dimple in his cheeks.

Travis wishes he could trap this moment in time, like a firefly in amber; Wes, relaxed and carefree, his face lit by the strobing lights. Wishes there was a way he could pull this second out when things are tough, so he can show Wes how amazing it is when he just _lets go_ for a second, and no one will judge him or think less of him for it. Because Wes has never looked so…so weightless, and it’s…well, honestly, it’s a good look. Wes should wear it more often.

He relaxes his grip on the steering wheel and allows himself a soft smile.

_I love you too, Wes._

**Author's Note:**

> I have an incredible weakness for stories where Travis takes care of Wes, and the prompt was too funny to resist. Thus, this happened. I’m not 100 percent happy with the ending, but it was fun to write, and I hope you enjoyed it.
> 
> This was written as gen but I also tried to write it a little pre-slashy. Except I kind of fail at pre-slash, so there’s that.
> 
> Disclaimer: I have never done ecstasy. All I know I learned from Wikipedia and TV. 
> 
> PSA moment: Don’t do drugs kids.


End file.
